At least 13 of the 34 mayors in the North West Region of Cameroon have issued statements emphasizing their commitment to ensuring the free issuance of civil status documents in their respective councils henceforth. They have also expressed their resolve to dismantle “middlemen” networks which often mastermind extortion from those seeking civil registration services.

The announcements come as a response to a campaign led last year by the office of the Public Independent Conciliator (PIC) of the region, condemning extortion by council authorities in the issuance of these important documents.

Among the councils that have announced the free issuance of civil status registration documents, according to the office of the PIC, are those of Andek, Balikumbat, Benakuma, Mbengwi, Misaje, Ndop, Ndu, Njinikom, Nkor, Nkum, Zhoa, Bamenda I, Tubah and Wum.

Last year, the office of the PIC launched a region-wide campaign which was aimed at discouraging the practice whereby poor citizens are made to cough out huge sums of money to either obtain birth, death or marriage certificates in many councils across the region.

The PIC, Simon Tamfu Fai, told Biometric Update in an interview at the time that the campaign was to remind council authorities that collecting money from citizens to register births, deaths or marriages is against the law and that all those involved in such illegal practices were exposing themselves to sanctions spelled out by the laws in force.

“This campaign is prompted by the growing and persistent complaints reported to the Office of the Public Independent Conciliator (PIC) in the North West Region. It is also confirmed by a survey carried out in 2022 which revealed that council administrators collect as much as FACF 15,000 for the issuance of birth certificates and as much as FCFA 100,000 to celebrate marriages,” Fai said then.

Months after the campaign was launched, the PIC reports that many councils in the region are now increasing becoming compliant with the civil status legislation law.

“Following the campaign to promote the free establishment of civil status documents, some mayors have signed municipal orders announcing the free establishment of these documents in their municipalities. The number of press releases signed by mayors in this regard keeps increasing,” the office of the PIC said in a statement posted to its official Facebook page.

“The Public Independent Conciliator, Tamfu Simon Fai, encourages mayors who haven’t started issuing civil status documents free of charge in their municipality to do so, and to sign press releases in this light, as other mayors have done,” the statement adds.

It is expected that the move by the office of the PIC will go a long way in increasing the rate of obtaining civil status documents in the crisis-ridden region, and probably serve as a lesson to the rest of the country where access to civil status registration services remains difficult and expensive.

Source: Biometricupdate

Armed separatists in Southern Cameroons have killed over 80 soldiers and police since their insurgency began in September last year, the government said in a report on Wednesday that suggests the conflict is intensifying.

What began in late 2016 as a peaceful movement calling for greater representation of the mostly French-speaking country’s Anglophone minority morphed into conflict after a heavy-handed government response, in which troops shot at civilians from helicopter gunships and burned villages. That bolstered support for some in Anglophone Cameroon who want to form a new state called the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The unrest in the oil- and cocoa-producing Southwest and Northwest regions often involves hit-and-run attacks by insurgents on the army. “Statistics as of 11 June 2018 showed that 123 attacks had been carried out claiming 84 lives, including 32 soldiers, 42 gendarmes, seven police officers, two prison warders and one eco-guard,” said the report, presented by Prime Minister Philemon Yang at a news conference in Yaounde.

In February, an army spokesman told Reuters separatists had killed 22 soldiers and policemen in the previous five months. No figures are available for casualties on the separatist side, but its leaders says there have been some. The fighting has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee over the border into Nigeria.

In the report, the government pledged 12.7 billion CFA francs ($21.7 million) over 18 months to help nearly 75,000 people who have been displaced across the two Anglophone regions. President Paul Biya seeks reelection in October polls, after leading the country for more than three decades.

Source: Reuters

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government has condemned the latest military deployment in Southern Cameroons by the French Cameroun dictatorship in Yaoundé stressing that the Biya regime’s criminals will never see their pipe dream of the one and indivisible Cameroon come true.

Comrade Dabney Yerima made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Cameroon Concord News on Saturday in reaction to Cameroon government recent military deployment to Bui Division.

“Such deployments explicitly reveal the sinister intentions of our so called French speaking brothers against our dear Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Southern Cameroonians have been subjected to all forms of crimes against humanity for more than four decades. It, nevertheless, continues its honorable life of resistance more vigorously than ever,” Dabney Yerima said.

Dabney Yerima added that French Cameroun authorities should be reminded that nearly 25,000 Southern Cameroonians have sacrificed their lives over the past 6 years for the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to maintain its independence and strongly safeguard every iota of its territory.

“Those who are fighting with their lives for the glory and sovereignty of Southern Cameroons are men and women who come from all the nooks and crannies of Ambazonia,” Dabney Yerima stated.

“Francophone criminals, who are currently overseeing the massacring of Southern Cameroons women and children in order to compensate for their successful failures in La Republique du Cameroun, will never live to see their pipe dream of defeating Ambazonia fulfilled,” the exiled Southern Cameroons leader emphasized.

By Alain Tabot-Tanyi

The military court in Ebolowa in the South Region has finally made public its verdict on the Franck Derlin Ebanga-Lydienne Taba affair.

Franck Derlin Ebanga, a civil administrator was accused of murdering his partner Lydienne Taba with a pistol he reportedly collected from a gendarmerie officer in his area of command four years ago.

The presiding judge sentenced him on Wednesday and issued a committal order at the hearing. He will also pay the victim’s family FCFA 45 million in damages.

This is the outcome of a case that began on the night of 24-25 July 2020. Franck Derlin Ebanga, then Divisional Officer of Loukoundje in Océan Division spent a tense evening at his home in the town of Kribi with his partner, Lydienne Taba, a student at the University of Douala. The following day, the body of the 23-year-old woman was found lifeless.

The 30-year-old chef de terre as they are known in French speaking Cameroon initially explained that it was an accidental discharge from his service weapon that killed Lydienne Taba. His version was disputed by the victim’s family.

An investigation conducted by the Gendarmerie Legion in Ebolowa led to the conviction of the accused. His new home is now the Ebolowa central prison. Solange Lydienne Taba was laid to rest on August 29, 2020 in Lobathal Mouanko, her native village in the Sanaga-Maritime Division, Littoral region.

By Alain Tabot-Tanyi with files

Northern Cameroon has for decades been a hub for ammunition, small arms and light weapons trafficking in the Sahel. The problem has fuelled regional insecurity since 1980. In response, states of the Lake Chad Basin Commission created the Multinational Joint Task Force in 1994.

But arms trafficking has worsened since Boko Haram’s emergence and expansion into Cameroon in 2013. In the past decade, Cameroon’s defence forces have seized and destroyed over 3 000 weapons and items of military equipment.

Northern Cameroon covers the Far North, North and Adamawa regions, which form part of the Sahelian belt. This part of Cameroon shares borders with Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), and experiences a lot of smuggling and trafficking.

Due to various insurrections, Nigeria has become fertile ground for the manufacture of homemade weapons. In Chad, numerous conflicts since the 1970s – including rebellions and reversals of political power – have led to a proliferation of small arms.

Coupled with various forms of violent extremism, the rebellion of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Sahara, which developed during the 1990s in Niger’s Diffa and Agadez regions, bordering Chad, also increased the circulation of weapons. And Chad’s proximity to Libya, which has been afflicted by civil war over several decades, has exacerbated the problem.

The CAR, for its part, is experiencing a long cycle of socio-political instability. Between 2004 and 2014, the groups involved in the country’s three bloody civil wars engaged in intense arms trafficking. But despite a 2013 United Nations Security Council arms embargo, weapons continue circulating.

Institute for Security Studies research shows that weapons pass through corridors used for illicit trade, migratory flows and transhumance. To reach Boko Haram in Nigeria, guns from Chad pass through the country’s capital N’Djamena, and are then smuggled through Kousseri and Fotokol in Cameroon. Or they pass through Cameroon’s Mora and surrounding areas.

Weapons are also leaving Boko Haram strongholds to fuel insecurity in Northern Cameroon. Their route follows an axis between Gwoza in Nigeria, and Mayo-Tsanaga and Mayo-Louti or Bénoué in Cameroon.

Weapons from Chad and CAR, used for kidnappings for ransom in Cameroon’s Northern and Adamaoua regions, pass through Touboro and Garoua-Boulaï. Traffickers bringing in arms from Niger and Sudan use the cross-border transhumance routes, many converging towards Cameroon’s north.

Traffickers use various means to transport weapons. Some pose as traders, hiding guns in goods, especially cereal bags. Others disguise themselves as transporters of goods and people, hiding weapons in their vehicles. Many nomads moving in and between the countries mentioned above are also arms smugglers.

These weapons add to the region’s insecurity. They contribute to existing community conflicts – particularly disputes between farmers and breeders, indigenous and non-native populations, inheritance conflicts and religious antagonisms.

Urgent measures are needed to curb the problem. A 2016 Cameroonian law imposes three months to two years’ imprisonment for arms trafficking. In 2018, Cameroon hosted the conference of the Central African states party to the Kinshasa Convention for the control of small arms and light weapons. Cameroon and Nigeria also met in September 2022 to discuss collaborating to combat the problem.

On the ground, defence and security forces have managed to seize weapons during their operations. However, faced with the growing scale of the problem, this is not enough. Cameroon’s 2016 law should be amended to enable harsher penalties for arms trafficking. And greater political commitment is needed to translate recommendations from conferences into action.

Concrete steps must be taken at national, regional and interregional levels. At the national level, Cameroon and its neighbouring countries must strengthen their policies against arms trafficking by imposing tougher measures. In addition to raising the alarm in the event of a security threat, local community committees must help collect information about the circulation of weapons.

At the regional level, the gendarmes, police, military, ecoguards and customs officers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and CAR need a significant boost in logistical capacity. They also need a collaborative mechanism that allows rapid response and coordination of joint actions to stop arms trafficking.

Finally, at the interregional level, the ad hoc committees in charge of the issue, such as the Multinational Joint Task Force or the Brazzaville Convention, must share lessons on what works.

Source: Defenseweb

Cameroonian authorities must disclose which journalists, in addition to murdered journalist Martinez Zogo, have been targeted for surveillance by the country’s counterintelligence service and ensure that spying on members of the media is immediately discontinued, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

The existence of a surveillance operation that allegedly spied on Zogo since at least 2015 was disclosed in a 20-page referral to trial document reviewed by CPJ. The document was part of a judicial investigation into the January 2023 kidnapping, torture, and murder of the popular radio host, which was finalized on February 29, 2024.

Seventeen suspects are expected to stand trial, on a date yet to be set, in a military court in the capital, Yaoundé, on charges including murder, complicity and conspiracy to murder, complicity and conspiracy to torture, complicity to kidnap, and violation of instructions, according to the document and news reports.

The suspects include:

Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, former head of the counterintelligence agency General Directorate for External Research (DGRE)

Justin Danwe, former DGRE director of operations

Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, an influential businessman and head of the privately owned media group L’Anecdote

Bruno François Bidjang, L’Anecdote managing director and news presenter for privately owned television station Vision 4

“The revelation that a surveillance operation targeted popular radio host Martinez Zogo since at least 2015 raises concerns about which other journalists have been surveilled by Cameroon’s counterintelligence agency,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program in New York. “Cameroonian authorities must make a full disclosure and ensure the end to all surveillance, physical or electronically, of journalists. The unfettered practice is not only a violation of journalists’ right to privacy but has serious consequences for source protection.”

Zogo was found dead on January 22, 2023, after going missing five days earlier.  A week before his abduction, Zogo publicly accused Belinga of widespread corruption involving funds from the Cameroonian treasury during his radio show Embouteillage (Gridlock).

The court document reviewed by CPJ was prepared by lead investigating judge, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierrot Narcisse Nzié, the third investigating judge in the case who was appointed in December after the previous judge ordered the controversial release of Belinga and Eko Eko. The pair remained in detention after authorities claimed that the release order was fake.

The document describes how DGRE agents led by Danwe, under the influence of Belinga, allegedly carried out the kidnapping and torture of Zogo in Ebogo, a district of the capital Yaoundé, on January 17, 2023. Part of this team returned to the scene an hour later for a second operation that “resulted in Zogo’s death” by “strangulation and torture.”

The court document said Eko Eko denied involvement, saying Zogo was never a threat to him and the operation against the journalist was Danwe’s personal initiative; however, Nzié said Eko Eko could not claim this, as he had ordered the DGRE to surveil the journalist since 2015 as part of the “Presse” dossier.  The court documents did not elaborate further but said the surveillance operation ordered by Eko Eko was confirmed by another witness,  Emmanuella Moudie, the chief of the DRGE’s electronic surveillance division.

Zogo’s surveillance was also corroborated by Yves Saïwang, another suspect facing trial and an officer in the DGRE’s electronic surveillance division, who “bluntly” declared during questioning that Zogo was the target of the DGRE’s surveillance, according to the court document. Saïwang also said that since 2017, he was responsible for monitoring Zoga. Eko Eko had never taken any measures to prevent this and could not escape responsibility, Nzié said in the court document.

Saïwang also said he sent Danwe geolocation information about Zogo via WhatsApp and then received 20,000 francs (US $33), according to the document. Heudji Guy Serge, another DGRE officer who is also a suspect in the trial, said he, too, provided technical information to Danwe about Zogo and received 15,000 francs (US $25).

Denis Omgba Bomba, director of the media observatory at Cameroon’s Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that there was no surveillance “program” dedicated to journalists but that as Zogo was a public figure, the surveillance was a normal intelligence operation. Bomba added that the protection of journalists’ sources is not absolute and that the state can ignore this for security reasons.

Authorities charged Bidjang with conspiracy to torture, conspiracy to arrest, and kidnapping in relation to Zogo’s murder, according to the court document. He is detained in Yaoundé’s Principal Prison on separate charges of revolt, incitement to insurrection, rebellion, and spreading false news, his lawyer, Charles Tchoungang, told CPJ.

Source: CPJ

The Yaoundé military court in Cameroon on Friday closed their judicial investigation into the murder of journalist and former director of radio amplitude FM, Martinez Zogo who died just over a year ago.

The trial will now open in the coming weeks according to the counter-espionage service. The twenty or so accused have all been referred to the court on various charges.

In Cameroon, the end of this judicial investigation comes just five days after five of the detainees had their charges reclassified. Three members of the DGRE, Cameroon’s counter-espionage service, will be prosecuted for “assassination”.

The businessman and the head of the Direction générale de la recherche extérieure (DGRE) are accused of having played a role in the death of the director of radio Amplitude FM, whose tortured body was discovered on the outskirts of Yaoundé in January. Zogo had not been missing for five days before his remains were located January 22 near Soa, a suburb of Yaoundé.

Léopold Maxime Eko Eko is suspected of “having provoked in any way whatsoever the torture of Martinez Zogo or given instructions to commit it”, in the words of the examining magistrate. In the course of the investigation, the intelligence chief was questioned several times on the substance of the case. In particular, he was confronted by his sole accuser, Justin Danwe, as well as several agents working within the DGRE at the time of the events.

Among the incriminating elements that interested the investigators: the holding of a meeting during which Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, Justin Danwe and several DGRE technicians allegedly listened to an audio tape attributed to Martinez Zogo, in which he allegedly made defamatory remarks about the head of the intelligence services.

In the minutes of the release order, quoted by jeune Afrique, the magistrates noted that Eko Eko, Danwe and the witnesses cited had assured them “that a meeting had never been held at the situation center with the journalist Martinez Zogo as the subject”.

Outrage over Zogo’s murder

The murder of Salomon Mbani Zogo better known as Martinez Zogo left many shocked in Cameroon as NGOs continued to call out violations of press freedom and freedom of speech.

The man in his fifties was the host of popular daily radio show, Embouteillage or Gridlock in English. On the air, he regularly tackled cases of corruption and alleged embezzlement, not hesitating to question important personalities by name. Amougou Belinga was one of them. The businessman is reputedly a friend of several ministers.

Fellow journalists paid their respects to Zogo and called for an investigation which Cameroonian President Paul Biya ordered on Thursday, February 2. The probe into the abduction and subsequent brutal killing of the journalist led to the arrests of Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga and Léopold Maxime Eko Eko.

Reporters without Borders alleged that “the outcome of the investigations [remained] very uncertain as the affair’s ramifications reach up to the highest level of the state while the political environment [was] described by several local sources as verging on insurrection.”

Source: Africa News

An improvised explosive device (IED) detonated during a Cameroonian military patrol in the turbulent Far North region killed at least five soldiers, the army said Wednesday.

The attack took place Tuesday in Gossi, a locality in the Mayo Tsanaga division of the region when an IED planted on the side of a road by the terror group Boko Haram was triggered by a passing military vehicle.

The powerful blast destroyed the vehicle and killed four soldiers on the spot and another soldier who was badly injured died early Wednesday, the army said.

A security source said that all those killed in the attack were members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, the Cameroonian elite force.

Cameroon has intensified military patrols in the region following frequent attacks from Boko Haram, which has been active in the region since 2014, according to security reports by local police.

Source: Xinhuanet